


I Can Still Feel Them...

by Blackwell_Writes



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel), the arcana
Genre: Angst, Death, Grieving, Non-Binary Apprentice, Other, Plague, The Lazaret, The apprentice is dead, Unintentional Self Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-16 23:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21044378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackwell_Writes/pseuds/Blackwell_Writes
Summary: Asra has been living in Nopal for months now, happy in ignorance and isolation. Then a letter from the love of his life changes everything. This is not a happy story, it does not have a happy end. Reader beware: sadness, like smoke, is filling the air.





	I Can Still Feel Them...

**Author's Note:**

> Please be advised that this work made *me* cry while I was writing it. I was in the mood for horror and this is what came of it.

The morning sun shone through the window of the house in Nopal. Asra was spread out on the bed, body begging for the cool of night again. Faust woke him up, slithering over his chest and crying "Friend! Friend write!"  


Asra woke with a start, "Friend? Ziv wrote?"  


Faust bobbed her head, "Letter."  


Asra stood, half dressed and shoeless, and went to the door. As Faust had said, there was a letter slid half under the door. He could feel Ziv's energy radiating off the paper. Even if he hadn't seen them in months, it would be impossible to forget the feel of their magic and how it clung to everything they touched. He smiled a little. Maybe today was the day they asked to come join him. Maybe they had finally realized it wasn't safe to stay in Vesuvia, that it was impossible to help victims of the plague the way they wanted to.  


He felt a little smug as he sat at the table, slowly pulling the wax seal off. He was sure it was good news. It had to be...  


"Dearest Asra,  


You were right. I couldn't do it. I couldn't save even one person as they died in front of me. The plague keeps taking so many people and it's killing me. This work has been so important to me, as I comfort those I can, but I can't anymore... I can't risk exposing anyone else to the plague through me. It's killing me now, too. My eyes turned red yesterday. I've been coughing all night and I am so sorry that there may be blood on this letter. I'm going to the island tonight, before the Doctor can find out and try to change my mind. You won't see this until it's too late for you to try and save me too. Please, don't blame yourself. I made my choice when you offered me an escape. You told me I'd die if I stayed, and you were right. But you're alive. Please stay alive. I need you alive, Asra.  
The boats leave soon. I love you. I'll never get to say it to you again so save these words for both of us. I love you, Asra Alnazar. I love you, I love you, I love you. I am so, so very sorry.  


Yours, always,  


Ziv"  


The letter dropped to the table as he read the last line. He ran out the door, still without shoes. He called for the beast to come, hoping they were awake by now. He had to get home now. He had to hope that there was still time to get to them. The beast was off in the distance, and Asra took just a moment to put shoes and a shirt on.  
He didn't sleep the entire trip, no matter how hard the wind whipped his face and chest he couldn't bring himself to lay down in the fur and close his eyes. He didn't want to see the nightmares waiting for him. Faust stayed hidden in his scarf the entire ride back to Vesuvia, even as Asra ran through the fields. Through the streets, the dirt, the sand, all the way to the end of the docks where the barges left to take people there. To the Lazaret. To die.  


Asra could hear the last fight he and Ziv had playing out in his mind.  


"What are you talking about!? Stay!?" He had asked, shocked that they were refusing to flee.  


"I want to help people, Asra! Why don't you!?" Ziv had yelled back at him. One of the few times they had ever raised their voices in anger at each other.  


"There's no helping them! They'll all die and then you'll be next, Ziv!" He half promised, hating himself for the sureness in his voice. He calmed, and reached out to them, "Is that what you want? To be the next on a boat? The next to burn?"  


Ziv turned away, not letting him touch them, "...If I can save one life before then, it'll be worth it. But maybe you should go, Asra. If you're so sure you'll lose me no matter what. May as well make it now."

Asra's face was wet, but he didn't know when the tears had started. He looked around for a boat, there were none on the dock. Faust poked her head out of the scarf timidly. "Swim?" She suggested. Asra shook his head mutely, spotting a small boat out on the beach. He ran for it, and jumped in. He didn't check for oars, for holes, for any kind of safety. He just pushed off from the sand and used magic to push them as fast as he could toward the dark island with smoke rising from dead trees.  
Asra ran, stumbled, fell, got up and ran more. The sad was too soft beneath his feet. Too loose. It wasn't sand, he realized in horror and disgust. It was ash. He made it to the building where the sick were supposed to be kept. Some were there, lying lifelessly in beds too small for most of them. He ran among the beds, vaguely wondering where the doctors were. He searched each face for Ziv, hoping they were here. Praying they were here.  


He saw their neighbor, a young child whose name he couldn't remember. They told him Ziv was...gone. They went "with the last group" they said. Asra bolted out of there, heading for the incinerators, hoping against hope he wasn't too late. The people working the incinerator said the last batch had just...been dumped. On the beach out back.  
Biting back bile, Asra ran out to the beach. He tried to find some hint of where Ziv was, any sign of a body, something- He stopped dead as it hit him. Faint, fleeting, buried. Their magic. They were here, somewhere. They were here. He dropped to his knees, and without thinking he dug. All day he dug through the ashes. He dug until he found sand again, then he moved. He dug until his hands bled and his nails tore. But he dug all the same. He dug when Faust crawled out to help, her voice a numb noise blending with the rushing of his own blood in his ears. He dug, and dug, and dug, and...his hand found something cold. Hard. Known. His fingers wrapped around the chain of a long necklace. An emerald, carved as an upside down heart. The Magicians Heart. Zivs magic sputtered off of it weakly, like dying embers of a fire.  


Asra clutched it to his chest, finally letting out a cry of pain that cut through the sky and sent the few birds brave enough to stay on the island skyward. Pain, not for his hands, or his knees, or feet. His heart felt torn in twain. Half died with Ziv, the half that belonged to them, and now Asra lived with a crippled heart. He cried out again, wordless pain ripping from his throat, from his soul.  


Faust felt his pain, and her own too. She loved their friend. She found friend though. Part of them. Faust couldn't get Asra to look at her, so she pushed what she found in front of him, and gently wrapped up his arm and squeezed. "Friend." She told him.  


Asra looked at her blankly, "They're gone, Faust."  


She shook her head and pointed at the ground with her tail, "Friend found."  


Asra looked down, and felt faint. A charred skull sat in front of him. Just like the necklace, it had the merest traces of Zivs magic. 

It was theirs.


End file.
